The "left" is never right about anything that matters. That doesn't automatically make those on the "right" in the right, but it's a fairly good starting point. For all his faults, Donald Trump did a good job in the Middle East. There were peace treaties and more informal exchanges between Israel and its neighbours. Iran was muzzled. America avoid war during his tenure, and relations with Saudia Arabia and most other countries in the region improved.
Joe Biden made an enemy of the effective ruler of Saudi Arabia before he even got elected. The consequences of that mistake were clear when Biden went to Saudi to beg for help and got nothing. Relations with other Middle Eastern countries also worsened. The only state that has benefitted from Biden being president is Iran, and surely even the author of this woefully inaccurate article doesn't think that is a good idea.
The article in question is so wrong that I suspect even its author is aware of its glaring faults. This leads me to question his integrity because anyone who publishes something they know is not true is a liar.
Wondering, what is the purpose of the shown map in relation to the article? What is its source?
It seems to me factually incorrect. The map applies the same label and color to different concepts, thus implying a comparison that is not actually there. As I am sure the author knows, in 1946 what his map labels Palestine was a territory under the mandate of the League of Nations. It was legally inhabited by Arabs, Jews, and other ethno-religious groups. Large part of it was a desert not much inhabited by anybody (which was later assigned to Israel by the partition). There were, of course, no states of either Palestine or Israel in 1946, contrary to what the map implies.
The 1947 map does correctly show the UN-proposed partition of the territory into two new states. From 1949, the only state that was actually created was the state of Israel, as shown on the map. What the author labeled Palestine in his maps in 1949 and 2012 is still not a state of Palestine (which has yet to be created). These are territories were Palestinian Arabs remained after formation of Israel and the wars between the Arab states and Israel starting in 1947-48. These territories are not the same concept as the larger territory of the Mandatory Palestine in 1947, which was inhabited by Arabs, jews, and others. The map uses green and white colors to imply the same erroneous comparison.
It might be that the "left" however that is defined has a better understanding of the history of Palestine and the realities of the current crisis than the "right" which seems only interested in a blinkered interpretation of events that revolves around the genocide of Palestinians
Every time an international crisis breaks out, whether financial or war, the first thing pundits do is suggest the international system is broken. Except arguably for the period of the Long Cold War, it was at best stable, despite the fact that the US and the then Soviet Union (and China) fought proxy wars here and there, the worst of which for US diplomacy was its dirty war in Vietnam and Cambodia, which unfolded with US (and western) paranoia over the spread of Marxism-Leninism at the hands of the Soviet and Chinese regimes. It was a war the US lost in the most embarrassing way for a superpower, a war from which it has never recovered. It won smaller wars, such as the one in Panama, but lost Iraq and Afghanistan in, again, the most embarrassing way for a superpower or, if you like, the so-called sole hegemon, which was, to all intents and purposes, a grandiose global propaganda cry to rally its traditional, post-WWII allies and enlist new ones.
With the supposed rise and rise of China, which now boasts as a new superpower to rival US dominance, the question that comes to mind is whether the US (and its allies, old and new) are baulking? Answer: No. The international system remains "broken" -- depending on your definition; my definition is that it has been and remains under stress, and not for the failure of "diplomacy" (however you want to define it). It is under stress because, as a result of all the small wars it has won and offered Washington little comfort of its "greatness", the big wars -- Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan -- are stultifying US response and embedded in US international relations psyche. There are those redneck Americans (majority Republicans) who openly want a war with the likes of China and who openly want to kick Putin-esque Russian ass. But that's as far as Republican bravado goes -- usual Republican fart. As for the Democrats under Joe Biden, they are completely lost, bungling sheep too caught up in their own domestic warfares and associated bullshit.
Frankly, Hamas did not have to do much at all to put a blowtorch under the wobbly international system or indeed US international relations. Its primary objective was to put a blowtorch under the ultra-Zionists who have captured the compulsively lying, corrupt and utterly desperate Benjamin Netanyahu. In fact, looking at it another way, Netanyahu should thank Hamas for distracting his detractors who want to toss him into the sea -- does not matter which sea -- which his hands and feet bound and a boulder tied around them. Netanyahu is a first class scoundrel, and soon as Hamas conducted his dastardly attacks where it murdered, raped and kidnapped innocent Israelis, I will bet dollar to a pound he rubbed his hands in glee for two reasons: one, his humiliating ejection from politics and imprisonment for corruption has been pushed back (for w while), and, two, he knew it would bring the US rushing in stupidly. Stupidly because American politics, like it or not, is a captive of the all-powerful Jewish lobby and the US Military Industrial Complex. Biden has the blood of innocent Palestinians on his hands but that is offset, so far as he is concerned, for being seen to stand firm with the ultra-Zionist-Netanyahu bloodyminded regime. Would he or Netanyahu care for the Israeli citizens and soldiers killed by Hamas? No. That's collateral damage. That is the nature of wars -- just or unjust.
Diplomacy is such a vague concept, made murkier by the fact that few people really understand what diplomacy does. Foster good inter-state relations politically and for economics (trade)? Big deal. Does ASEAN? Does APEC? The G20 "summits"? COP28? All these international organizations are nothing more than talk-shops that sow some vague ideas in big businesses and people that the international system is being governed by responsible political cretins. If anything they are managed so that economies are not severely damaged. You really think the Russian economy is dying because of international sanctions? Ask Putin whilst he holds the largest reserves of oil and gas that the West, Japan, China, India, even the inconsequential (not minnow) international relations player Australia, desperately depend on. You really think China's economy is on its knees? What if it bounces back? What then will you say about diplomacy and international relations? Nothing. All these concerns will vanish overnight at the sight of a rebound in foreign exchange income revenues and international capital flows. People used to say Covid will sink the international system, bring the world to war? Didn't happen. If anything, it hotted up Cold War Mark III. And it'll dissipate once a balance is struck between a declining power, in relative terms, the US, Russia, China, India and the Arab oil-producing states.
As for Hamas: I hope to hell Israel goes all out and exterminates Hamas, Hizbollah and every other jihadist terrorist group, and blows up Iranian nuclear cells within Iran. Take out the mad mullah Iranian clergy and wherever else they hide like maggots. But Netanyahu must go and -- watch this space -- watch Biden become an ordinary politician fighting for re-election, as Hamas is slowly destroyed, as is destroyed -- before he destroys Israel -- and the usual spiels of being "presidential" come fluttering through the weak and gutless mainstream media that all is as it should be -- where the international system muddles through yet again.
There was nothing "brutal" "savage" "cruel" or "ïnhumane" about Hamas's offensive on Israel 50 years to the day Egypt surprised Israel and "savaged" it in a similar offensive when the Jewish state lost a key battle against it Arab Neighbour Egypt. Every war is "brutal" "savage" "cruel" and "ïnhumane" when you come to think of it, unless of course you adopt the Jewish Western narratives abut wars.
Dier Yassin was not even a war. It was ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs from their homeland by Jewish terrorists, the Irgun, Haganah and Stern Gang. There were at least a dozen more of these massacres in the decades to come including the horrible massacres of Sabra and Chatilla which led to the late Italian Union leader Enrico Berlinguer and Italian Jew to head a march of unionists chanting "Jews to the ovens" in Italian. Such was the outrage in Europe at the time. Bruno Kriesky the Jewish Chancellor of Austria at the time referred to Begin the man responsible for the massacres of Sabra and Chatilla as a Polish butcher, a term later revised to Polish grocer.
The Jews in Palestine in the 1940's during and after the "ëxodus" were designated the label terrorist which incidentally Britain has not yet removed officially. Menachem Begin of one of the 3 terror groups would become Prime Minister of Israel in the early 1980s. His counterpart from the Stern Gang Yitzak Shamir would become Prime Minister of Israel after him.
The US is in deep crisis and needs to pacify everyone including their captor the Jewish lobby they call AIPAC in the US. Even within AIPAC there is disquiet about Nehtanyahu's actions which remind many Jews of the Nazi attacks on the Warsaw ghetto and and Babyn Yar in Ukraine which saw thee "shooting fish in a barrel" massacre of 1,600,000 Jews in WWII.
Hamas has and will retaliate militarily deep within Israel in the months to come. Many Israelis of conscience will not fight what they consider an immoral and unjustified war against Palestinians. Israel has been recruiting Indians from the North West state of Mizoram, mainly Seventh Day Adventists telling them they are descendants of the tribe of Gadd. Such is Israel's desperation to survive. Already 80,000 Mizoram Indians reside in Israel under the law of return. Being of a martial race like the Gurkhas and poor, they are valued in Israel as cannon fodder.
There is much more. Most writers and commentators are missing the real problem Israel faces against Hamas. Hamas attacked with precision, and demoralized a vain and hubris filled IDF. What they inflicted in morale is worse than what they inflicted on the IDF militarily. This was Hamas' version of the Tet offensive against the US in Vietnam in 1968. And it was brilliantly executed.
Regardless of how the Western media feel compelled to describe what Hamas did in terms of savagery and blood lust, it can't get over the fact that Hamas secured its intelligence from within the IDF and Mossad. Hamas weakened the legendary Mossad in 1999 when they tried to assassinate its leader Khaled Misssal.
People especially the West tend to forget that Mossad and the IDF have won several spectacular battles against a lesser armed Palestinian resistance over the years. But the war has not been won yet. And Israeli IDF and Mossad blunders have been far greater than their achievements.
Israel has nowhere to turn to because Benjamin Nethanyahu has nowhere to turn to. When this disaster ends and when he is forced out of office, the truth of his bastadry in his cozying up to the Settler and Evangelical Christians many of who have been given honorary Jewish status will surface to destroy the man completely.
There is no way out of this morass in the Levant that can be magicked out of thin air by the US or any external party other than Palestinians and Israelis themselves. People who argue for the US to put more pressure on Israel to stop its current offensive in Gaza ignore entirely Hamas' openly declared pledge that they will keep repeating Oct 7 attacks again and again until the very state of Israel is destroyed and Jews eradicated from the Middle East bit of the Earth. How do you reconcile an unstoppable force with an immovable object? The fact that domestic politics in Western countries like the US or UK or any other European country is able to be held hostage by age-old conflicts of religion and race in far-flung regions from domestic home shores is a disgrace in itself. There's no "good" or "bad" side to pick here, and even if there is one it certainly is not the side of Hamas or Palestinians Hamas claims to represent, fight, and use as human shields for their ideological purposes.
The "left" is never right about anything that matters. That doesn't automatically make those on the "right" in the right, but it's a fairly good starting point. For all his faults, Donald Trump did a good job in the Middle East. There were peace treaties and more informal exchanges between Israel and its neighbours. Iran was muzzled. America avoid war during his tenure, and relations with Saudia Arabia and most other countries in the region improved.
Joe Biden made an enemy of the effective ruler of Saudi Arabia before he even got elected. The consequences of that mistake were clear when Biden went to Saudi to beg for help and got nothing. Relations with other Middle Eastern countries also worsened. The only state that has benefitted from Biden being president is Iran, and surely even the author of this woefully inaccurate article doesn't think that is a good idea.
The article in question is so wrong that I suspect even its author is aware of its glaring faults. This leads me to question his integrity because anyone who publishes something they know is not true is a liar.
Wondering, what is the purpose of the shown map in relation to the article? What is its source?
It seems to me factually incorrect. The map applies the same label and color to different concepts, thus implying a comparison that is not actually there. As I am sure the author knows, in 1946 what his map labels Palestine was a territory under the mandate of the League of Nations. It was legally inhabited by Arabs, Jews, and other ethno-religious groups. Large part of it was a desert not much inhabited by anybody (which was later assigned to Israel by the partition). There were, of course, no states of either Palestine or Israel in 1946, contrary to what the map implies.
The 1947 map does correctly show the UN-proposed partition of the territory into two new states. From 1949, the only state that was actually created was the state of Israel, as shown on the map. What the author labeled Palestine in his maps in 1949 and 2012 is still not a state of Palestine (which has yet to be created). These are territories were Palestinian Arabs remained after formation of Israel and the wars between the Arab states and Israel starting in 1947-48. These territories are not the same concept as the larger territory of the Mandatory Palestine in 1947, which was inhabited by Arabs, jews, and others. The map uses green and white colors to imply the same erroneous comparison.
An utterly deranged interpretation events by a left wing journalist who is so ignorant he doesn't even know what IDF stands for.
It might be that the "left" however that is defined has a better understanding of the history of Palestine and the realities of the current crisis than the "right" which seems only interested in a blinkered interpretation of events that revolves around the genocide of Palestinians
The author's thesis is sound and backed by evidence. A typo doesn't change the thrust of the argument, which is solid and verifiable.
thank you, we have corrected that
Every time an international crisis breaks out, whether financial or war, the first thing pundits do is suggest the international system is broken. Except arguably for the period of the Long Cold War, it was at best stable, despite the fact that the US and the then Soviet Union (and China) fought proxy wars here and there, the worst of which for US diplomacy was its dirty war in Vietnam and Cambodia, which unfolded with US (and western) paranoia over the spread of Marxism-Leninism at the hands of the Soviet and Chinese regimes. It was a war the US lost in the most embarrassing way for a superpower, a war from which it has never recovered. It won smaller wars, such as the one in Panama, but lost Iraq and Afghanistan in, again, the most embarrassing way for a superpower or, if you like, the so-called sole hegemon, which was, to all intents and purposes, a grandiose global propaganda cry to rally its traditional, post-WWII allies and enlist new ones.
With the supposed rise and rise of China, which now boasts as a new superpower to rival US dominance, the question that comes to mind is whether the US (and its allies, old and new) are baulking? Answer: No. The international system remains "broken" -- depending on your definition; my definition is that it has been and remains under stress, and not for the failure of "diplomacy" (however you want to define it). It is under stress because, as a result of all the small wars it has won and offered Washington little comfort of its "greatness", the big wars -- Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan -- are stultifying US response and embedded in US international relations psyche. There are those redneck Americans (majority Republicans) who openly want a war with the likes of China and who openly want to kick Putin-esque Russian ass. But that's as far as Republican bravado goes -- usual Republican fart. As for the Democrats under Joe Biden, they are completely lost, bungling sheep too caught up in their own domestic warfares and associated bullshit.
Frankly, Hamas did not have to do much at all to put a blowtorch under the wobbly international system or indeed US international relations. Its primary objective was to put a blowtorch under the ultra-Zionists who have captured the compulsively lying, corrupt and utterly desperate Benjamin Netanyahu. In fact, looking at it another way, Netanyahu should thank Hamas for distracting his detractors who want to toss him into the sea -- does not matter which sea -- which his hands and feet bound and a boulder tied around them. Netanyahu is a first class scoundrel, and soon as Hamas conducted his dastardly attacks where it murdered, raped and kidnapped innocent Israelis, I will bet dollar to a pound he rubbed his hands in glee for two reasons: one, his humiliating ejection from politics and imprisonment for corruption has been pushed back (for w while), and, two, he knew it would bring the US rushing in stupidly. Stupidly because American politics, like it or not, is a captive of the all-powerful Jewish lobby and the US Military Industrial Complex. Biden has the blood of innocent Palestinians on his hands but that is offset, so far as he is concerned, for being seen to stand firm with the ultra-Zionist-Netanyahu bloodyminded regime. Would he or Netanyahu care for the Israeli citizens and soldiers killed by Hamas? No. That's collateral damage. That is the nature of wars -- just or unjust.
Diplomacy is such a vague concept, made murkier by the fact that few people really understand what diplomacy does. Foster good inter-state relations politically and for economics (trade)? Big deal. Does ASEAN? Does APEC? The G20 "summits"? COP28? All these international organizations are nothing more than talk-shops that sow some vague ideas in big businesses and people that the international system is being governed by responsible political cretins. If anything they are managed so that economies are not severely damaged. You really think the Russian economy is dying because of international sanctions? Ask Putin whilst he holds the largest reserves of oil and gas that the West, Japan, China, India, even the inconsequential (not minnow) international relations player Australia, desperately depend on. You really think China's economy is on its knees? What if it bounces back? What then will you say about diplomacy and international relations? Nothing. All these concerns will vanish overnight at the sight of a rebound in foreign exchange income revenues and international capital flows. People used to say Covid will sink the international system, bring the world to war? Didn't happen. If anything, it hotted up Cold War Mark III. And it'll dissipate once a balance is struck between a declining power, in relative terms, the US, Russia, China, India and the Arab oil-producing states.
As for Hamas: I hope to hell Israel goes all out and exterminates Hamas, Hizbollah and every other jihadist terrorist group, and blows up Iranian nuclear cells within Iran. Take out the mad mullah Iranian clergy and wherever else they hide like maggots. But Netanyahu must go and -- watch this space -- watch Biden become an ordinary politician fighting for re-election, as Hamas is slowly destroyed, as is destroyed -- before he destroys Israel -- and the usual spiels of being "presidential" come fluttering through the weak and gutless mainstream media that all is as it should be -- where the international system muddles through yet again.
There was nothing "brutal" "savage" "cruel" or "ïnhumane" about Hamas's offensive on Israel 50 years to the day Egypt surprised Israel and "savaged" it in a similar offensive when the Jewish state lost a key battle against it Arab Neighbour Egypt. Every war is "brutal" "savage" "cruel" and "ïnhumane" when you come to think of it, unless of course you adopt the Jewish Western narratives abut wars.
Dier Yassin was not even a war. It was ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs from their homeland by Jewish terrorists, the Irgun, Haganah and Stern Gang. There were at least a dozen more of these massacres in the decades to come including the horrible massacres of Sabra and Chatilla which led to the late Italian Union leader Enrico Berlinguer and Italian Jew to head a march of unionists chanting "Jews to the ovens" in Italian. Such was the outrage in Europe at the time. Bruno Kriesky the Jewish Chancellor of Austria at the time referred to Begin the man responsible for the massacres of Sabra and Chatilla as a Polish butcher, a term later revised to Polish grocer.
The Jews in Palestine in the 1940's during and after the "ëxodus" were designated the label terrorist which incidentally Britain has not yet removed officially. Menachem Begin of one of the 3 terror groups would become Prime Minister of Israel in the early 1980s. His counterpart from the Stern Gang Yitzak Shamir would become Prime Minister of Israel after him.
The US is in deep crisis and needs to pacify everyone including their captor the Jewish lobby they call AIPAC in the US. Even within AIPAC there is disquiet about Nehtanyahu's actions which remind many Jews of the Nazi attacks on the Warsaw ghetto and and Babyn Yar in Ukraine which saw thee "shooting fish in a barrel" massacre of 1,600,000 Jews in WWII.
Hamas has and will retaliate militarily deep within Israel in the months to come. Many Israelis of conscience will not fight what they consider an immoral and unjustified war against Palestinians. Israel has been recruiting Indians from the North West state of Mizoram, mainly Seventh Day Adventists telling them they are descendants of the tribe of Gadd. Such is Israel's desperation to survive. Already 80,000 Mizoram Indians reside in Israel under the law of return. Being of a martial race like the Gurkhas and poor, they are valued in Israel as cannon fodder.
There is much more. Most writers and commentators are missing the real problem Israel faces against Hamas. Hamas attacked with precision, and demoralized a vain and hubris filled IDF. What they inflicted in morale is worse than what they inflicted on the IDF militarily. This was Hamas' version of the Tet offensive against the US in Vietnam in 1968. And it was brilliantly executed.
Regardless of how the Western media feel compelled to describe what Hamas did in terms of savagery and blood lust, it can't get over the fact that Hamas secured its intelligence from within the IDF and Mossad. Hamas weakened the legendary Mossad in 1999 when they tried to assassinate its leader Khaled Misssal.
People especially the West tend to forget that Mossad and the IDF have won several spectacular battles against a lesser armed Palestinian resistance over the years. But the war has not been won yet. And Israeli IDF and Mossad blunders have been far greater than their achievements.
Israel has nowhere to turn to because Benjamin Nethanyahu has nowhere to turn to. When this disaster ends and when he is forced out of office, the truth of his bastadry in his cozying up to the Settler and Evangelical Christians many of who have been given honorary Jewish status will surface to destroy the man completely.
There is no way out of this morass in the Levant that can be magicked out of thin air by the US or any external party other than Palestinians and Israelis themselves. People who argue for the US to put more pressure on Israel to stop its current offensive in Gaza ignore entirely Hamas' openly declared pledge that they will keep repeating Oct 7 attacks again and again until the very state of Israel is destroyed and Jews eradicated from the Middle East bit of the Earth. How do you reconcile an unstoppable force with an immovable object? The fact that domestic politics in Western countries like the US or UK or any other European country is able to be held hostage by age-old conflicts of religion and race in far-flung regions from domestic home shores is a disgrace in itself. There's no "good" or "bad" side to pick here, and even if there is one it certainly is not the side of Hamas or Palestinians Hamas claims to represent, fight, and use as human shields for their ideological purposes.